The company that has acquired the three tour and activity booking systems Rezdy, Checkfront and Regiondo has made changes to the executive leadership, with former FareHarbor executive Mark Loh taking on the CEO position of the combined companies.
Chris Atkin and Susan DeBottis, the CEO and chief growth officer at Rezdy, respectively, have left the company. Checkfront co-founder Grant Jurgeneit and chief operating officer Mark Holder have also departed.
The private equity firm behind the rollup is Vertica Capital Partners, which has invested approximately $150 million to acquire and merge the three companies, according to a senior level company insider.
Arival first reported on the Rezdy-Checkfront merger last July. News broke a month later that Regiondo, the Germany-based booking system, joined the fold. Regiondo’s CEO, Oliver Nützel, remains with the company.
According to the senior insider we spoke with on condition of anonymity, each of the three companies have approximately the same number of customers, with a total of about 17,000, and they each represent an annual gross booking value of approximately $5 billion with a combined enterprise value of approximately $300 million.
Loh, the new CEO of the combined companies, spent six years as vice president of global product and chief product officer at FareHarbor, the largest booking system by number of customers and now a division of online travel booking giant Booking Holdings.
FareHarbor’s co-founder and former CEO Lawrence Hester is involved with Vertica Capital Partners as a “special limited partner,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
What does this mean for operators?
The company and investment firm behind the combined booking system merger has not spoken publicly about the deal or future plans. With three different booking systems and thousands of customers around the world, big questions remain about the future of the combined businesses and what it will mean for operators and distributors.
Software rollups like these typically leverage economies of scale by integrating the systems and services. This could include such elements as back office functions, payments, distribution connectivity (a single API to connect to online travel agencies and other platforms), customer service and even the underlying booking systems.
All of these steps would have business implications for the thousands of operators using their software, as well as the many partners that connect to it for reselling and other services.
*This story originally appeared on Arival.
